Hey Mom 🐾,

You won’t believe the tail I have to tell! I’m pretty much a canine superhero in Pawsburgh where I’ve become a legend for my mystical eye ✨. Things got ruff when a strange Collie-virus threatened to turn our dogtopia upside down. 😱 With my trusty sidekick Bleu, we’re sniffing out clues to save the day. It’s like living in a pooch thriller! 😎🐕

Talk soon, Mimi 🐶💖

As I strutted my patchwork self down the pristine streets of Lhasa Lane, the whispers began, like they always do.

“Oh, there goes Miracle, with her mesmerizing eye,” a perky Chihuahua chirped.

“I heard she stared at a fire hydrant, and it turned into a fountain of chicken stock,” a grizzled Boxer replied, his tail wagging at the urban legend I’d inadvertently inspired.

But that day, in Pawsburgh, something felt off. A smell lingered in the air, mustier than the Beagle brothers dogpile last Tuesday. Pawsburgh, the utopia for canines, felt uneasy. The morning gust carried a whiff of danger, and I hated danger – it was like carrots of the air; overwhelming and wholly unappetizing.

I flicked my ears back, my heart humming a bit faster than usual. I glanced at my reflection in the window of Canine Couture Clothing and saw my usual confident smirk falter. I needed Bleu. She was my level-headed counterpart, the peanut butter to my dog biscuit.

I navigated to Pinscher Plaza, valiantly suppressing the stir of uncertainty as I passed Poodle’s Pasta, where the scent of meatballs usually made my stomach do the Macarena. Today? No whiff, no dance. “Apawcalypse?” I joked to myself, the irony not lost as I patted my plush elephant toy. Little did I know how close to the bone my jest was.

At Pointer Pier, the salty breeze smelled like fear, and the seagulls overhead croaked like messengers of doom. And there she was, Bleu, gazing at the horizon with an intensity that suggested she was seeing more than the endless blue.

“Bleu, what’s with the serious snout?” I troted up to her.

“Miracle, it’s no walk in the dog park today. Have you heard?” Her voice was graver than when she tells me off for hogging the frisbee.

“Heard what?”

“Pawsburgh is changing. There’s a rumor of a… ‘Collie-virus’ spreading. It’s got all the dogs barking.” She narrowed her eyes, looking every inch the alert Pit Bull guard dog.

A shiver rippled through my fur. “Should we head to Barking Brunch to sniff around for more info?”

“No time. Look over there,” Bleu gestured with her snout.

Approaching from the Hound Hills was a pack. But something was wrong. Their tails didn’t wag; their barks were more growls. The usually yappy Pomeranian up front moved with a stiff gait, as if she had forgotten how to use her fluffy legs.

“Oh, doggo,” I swore softly. “That’s not a walk. That’s a… lurk.”

“We need a plan,” Bleu said, her ears swiveling like radar dishes.

“I say we hightail to The Pampered Pooch Salon—that Alsatian Alex knows everything. Perhaps it’s nothing. Maybe we’ll laugh about this over a slice of watermelon.”

We dashed through the streets, dodging the uncoordinated pursuits of the lurkers behind us. Passing Spaniel Spaghetti, deserted and silent, a chill caught in my throat. This wasn’t the Pawsburgh I knew.

We reached the salon, panting. Alex was moving barricades in place, his eye twitching upon seeing us.

“Alex, spill the kibble. What’s going on?” I demanded.

He sighed, a deep, sorrowful sound that didn’t sit right among the scent of shampoos and snips. “It’s the Collie-virus. It’s turning dogs… Well, less than dog-like. It’s like they’ve lost all their…”

“…Fur-sonality,” I finished for him.

An uneasy quiet fell among us as the magnitude of the situation sank in. Our little slice of paradise was in peril, and Bleu and I – we had to step up. Pawsburgh needed a hero. And I, Miracle, with my one blue eye and disdain for carrots, was about to show them a real miracle.

The End.